Top speed is not very useful in modern air combat.
F-35 does something like Mach 1.6 where the F-15 Eagle hit ~Mach 2.5 and F-14 Tomcat hit ~Mach 2.4.
That's not because we can't make a much faster jet, just other compromises are vastly more useful.
F-35 does something like Mach 1.6 where the F-15 Eagle hit ~Mach 2.5 and F-14 Tomcat hit ~Mach 2.4.
That's not because we can't make a much faster jet, just other compromises are vastly more useful.
Start combat at lower speeds and it's going to take even longer to hit high Mach.
Which is not to say it's useless, just not as useful relative to other tradeoffs.
Su-57 is still in infancy stage and judging from Russian problems, there's high chance it won't be around soon.
And for the F-35, it's easy to think of it as a dogfighter, but it's really intended more for the ground attack role. It can defend itself, but it's not going to be performing CAP when the F-22 or F-15s are around.